1. Field
Aspects of the present invention relate to a thin film deposition apparatus, and more particularly to a thin film deposition apparatus that can be simply applied to produce large-sized display devices on a mass scale and that improves manufacturing yield.
2. Description of the Related Art
Organic light-emitting display devices have a larger viewing angle, better contrast characteristics, and a faster response rate than other display devices. Thus, organic light emitting devices have drawn attention as a next-generation display device.
Organic light-emitting display devices generally have a stacked structure including an anode, a cathode, and an emission layer interposed between the anode and the cathode. The devices display images in color when holes and electrons, injected respectively from the anode and the cathode, recombine in the emission layer and thus light is emitted. However, it is difficult to achieve high light-emission efficiency with such a structure. Thus, intermediate layers (including an electron injection layer, an electron transport layer, a hole transport layer, a hole injection layer, or the like) are optionally additionally interposed between the emission layer and each of the electrodes.
Also, it is practically very difficult to form fine patterns in organic thin films (such as the emission layer and the intermediate layers). Red, green, and blue light-emission efficiency varies according to the organic thin films. For these reasons, it is not easy to form an organic thin film pattern on a large substrate, such as a mother glass having a size of 5G or more, by using a conventional thin film deposition apparatus. Thus, it is difficult to manufacture large organic light-emitting display devices having satisfactory driving voltage, current density, brightness, color purity, light-emission efficiency, life-span characteristics. Therefore, there is a demand for improvement in this regard.
An organic light-emitting display device includes intermediate layers (including an emission layer) disposed between a first electrode and a second electrode that are arranged opposite to each other. The electrodes and the intermediate layers may be formed via various methods, one of which is a deposition method. When an organic light-emitting display device is manufactured by using the deposition method, a fine metal mask (FMM) having the same pattern as a thin film to be formed is disposed to closely contact a substrate, and a thin film material is deposited over the FMM in order to form the thin film having the desired pattern.